Daily news and top headlines for broadband communications engineering and design professionals

Virgin Media chief operating officer Dana Strong will move into a new role at the end of this month as senior vice president, chief transformation officer at corporate parent Liberty Global. In her new position, Strong will report directly to Liberty Global CEO Mike Fries and she’ll also join Liberty’s executive management committee.

Coming off its best quarter yet, Netflix is accelerating its international expansion in hopes its original programming will hook millions more subscribers on the Internet video service. Netflix Inc. added 13 million worldwide subscribers last year, including 4.3 million during the final three months, according to figures released Tuesday in the company's fourth-quarter earnings report.

Network neutrality, cybersecurity, and paid sick leave are likely topics for this evening’s State of the Union address by President Barack Obama. The President in November announced his support of net neutrality, and what he calls “lowering the cost of launching a new idea.”

Rentrak said it is partnering with Kantar Shopcom to integrate retail purchase data and information into its television viewing data. The combined data should give advertisers a vastly more detailed ability to not only target ads to viewers, but also to monitor the effectiveness of marketing campaigns.

A new 5G research partnership involving China Mobile Research Institute and Nutaq Innovation will start work on testing and fine-tuning massive MIMO antenna applications, with a goal of 800 Gbps speeds -- far, far beyond the typical aims for 5G technology.

Alticast has promoted John Carlucci to the new position of president of Alticast North America. He has been Alticast’s CTO for the last three years, and he will keep that title as well. Carlucci joined the company from Time Warner Cable.

Vubiquity has signed a deal to provide National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) members with its integrated MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 linear platform, which is called “LiveVU.” Vubiquity's LiveVU hosted MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 service enables NCTC members to retire aging MPEG-2 transcoding systems while moving from MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 for improved bandwidth.

Bright House Networks and NetCracker have checked off the first phase of a large-scale BSS and customer experience upgrade off of their to-do list. The project includes consolidating and replacing Bright House Networks’ billing system as well as new CRM and e-commerce implementations.

Comcast has donated an unspecified amount of funds to the Internet Society to help build out more robust broadband infrastructure in Latin America, including Paraguay and Bolivia. The Internet Society said it would use the Comcast funding to broaden its Internet Exchange Point (IXP) initiatives in Latin America.

Amazon Studios is branching out from television series to movies, announcing plans to begin producing and acquiring original movies for theatrical release and, within weeks, video streaming. Just five years after its launch, Amazon Studios says it will begin producing motion pictures this year and aims to release a dozen original "prestige movies" annually.

Comcast is extending its habit of using big events to promote broadband TV, with its NBC subsidiary set to stream the Super Bowl for free to tablets and PCs. The stream will include a total of 11 hours of content, including the game itself and the halftime show.

It’s true that sponsored data has some benevolent, or at least fairly benign, applications. But an app that uses Fitbits to monitor hotel employees to make sure they're working suggests that more Orwellian applications could be on the horizon.

WOW Business has reached markets in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Kansas with its ongoing rollout of 110 Mbps service across its footprint. In addition, WOW! Business has increased the speed of its $60 service from 15/2 Mbps to 30/5 Mbps.

The Cuomo administration wants to give every corner of New York access to broadband Internet by 2019. If approved by state lawmakers the expansion plan would set aside $500 million to go to private broadband providers who invest a matching amount.

Vubiquity has hired Michele Edelman as its Executive vice president of marketing and communications. Edelman had most recently been vice president, worldwide direct to consumer marketing in the home entertainment division of Warner Bros. Studios.